Extreme Animal Facts

Extreme Animal Facts

Jennifer Cossins

Lothian, 2024

64pp., hbk., RRP $A26.99

9780734422477

Watch any school library at lunchtime and you will see a group of young lads gathered around the Guinness World records books, ooh-ing and ahh-ing as they try to outdo each other’s finds about the biggest, tallest, strongest… So this nominee for the CBCA 2025 Eve Pownall Award will be the ideal addition to their reading because it focuses on all sorts of extremes in the animal kingdom.

Jennifer Cossins is fast building both a reputation and repertoire  for creating non fiction books full of fascinating facts that really appeal to younger readers who want to find out more about the world around them without being bogged down in too much information.  So they can dip and delve into this treasure trove to learn things like the emperor penguin can dive deeper than any other seabird; the dung beetle is the strongest animal in relation to its body size; the immortal jellyfish lives longer than any other animal species on the planet and the tiny male peacock spider, no bigger than a grain of rice, is one of the most colourful creatures on Earth. 

As usual with her works, stunning illustrations and easily accessible text will engage young readers as they seek to discover which creature has the largest eyes, which can fly the highest and the greatest distance, which has the longest teeth and which has the most babies as well as many other records they didn’t even know they wanted to know about. It could inspire a range of maths activities as readers make comparisons, measure length and mass, create graphs and so on, while the teachers’ notes offer even more  ideas.  But, perhaps, the most valuable lesson of all will be those boys gathered around it learning that books and reading do have something to interest them.  Who knows where that might lead?